filtering to protect your kids

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As a parent, should you filter the Internet and/or TV to protect your kids? First I'll tell you my theoretical answer:

• If your kids are young, and you want to prevent them from mistakenly opening an objectionable site (e.g., if they do a web search and then click on an objectionable match, or if they mistype a url) it seems reasonable to setup filters to protect against this.
• But if your kids are older, you might as well not filter. Would you rather they see this stuff only secretly outside the home, or inside the home where you have a chance to talk about it with them? Also, where are your PCs and TVs located? In open areas is best. More important than filtering is to have an open trusting relationship with your kids where you can talk about anything, and they know ahead of time your opinions of bad media and why, and that you actually have two-way conversations about it.

Well, my theoretical opinion was changed a little when a teen friend of a friend recently got raped by someone she meet on IM (instant messenger).

I now think that having lots of conversations with your kids on these issues is more important than ever, and in addition, am thinking more seriously about the use of technology filters.

Bad IM is much more dangerous than bad web pages, since you are forming a relationship with a stranger (or someone known to you) who can be pretty compelling.

Have you ever actually watched what happens when you take some young insecure hormonal teens and give them PCs with IM which lets them type messages they might not be comfortable saying in person, and where they are egged on by peer pressure of their friends? They spend hours a day with half a dozen chat windows open and it is not pretty.

So now I'm learning and thinking about possible use of technology filters (sigh) to help (not replace) good parenting. One package is McAfee Parental Controls for $20. If I can't find something which is perfect for non-technical parents, I might even design something myself:

1. Simple install for non-technical parents, does not ask them any questions.
2. Has front-and-center tips panel to parents about how to have conversations with your kids about these topics, including a link to a bulletin board with other parents. Be sure to stress to parents why using technology alone is a very bad idea.
3. Set limits on IM hours per day per kid, as well as what times of day are ok and not.
4. Ability to limit IM with parent approved friends.
5. Ability to filter IM content, with optional alerts to parents.
6. Optional filtering of web pages.
7. Integrated with XP user authentication-- do not require separate passwords!
8. Implement as a Windows layered service provider (LSP) in such a way as to not get in the way of other filtering programs (ad blockers, anti-spam filters, firewalls) which might be on the same PC.
9. Optional protect against sending confidential info. (And stores any secure info with md5 hash.)
10. Optional protect against using various programs on the PC.

I also mistakenly bought a Netgear FP 114 "Web-Safe" Router. What a piece of junk. Having them call this "Web-Safe" is a cruel marketing joke; it does no content filtering, but instead only does *limited* domain name filtering (not even complete url / web address filtering), so somesite/porn.html will not be blocked even if you setup a "porn" keyword, and somesite/pix.html will not be blocked even if it has tons of horrible words on the page itself.

...

See also info about television.

And check out internetfilterreview.

What are your thoughts?